September 2009

Phew! I see that in June I said I was at the final scary stages of writing THE ICE MAIDEN. Little did I know it was going to take another three more months of panic and hair-raising to get it ready to send off. I'm meeting my marvelloud editor Liz Cross soon ro discuss it. By the time I deliver a manuscript I'm always a bit muddled by all the changes I've made so I really do need someone to cast a fresh eye over the book for me and tell me what works, what doesn't, and how deleting Page 161 has made the whole ending completely incomprehensible.

Hurray for editors!

WHEELS OF WAR has been published at long last. Hurray for that too. Many thanks to everyone who's written to say how much they enjoyed the story.

I had a lovely time visiting the Seven Stories in Newcastle during the summer. Do go to the museum of Children's Books if you possibly can. It's full of exciting things to see and do, amd everyone's very enthusiastic and friendly.

As a bonus, I was delighted to find a kittiwake colony on the Tyne Bridge too!

June 2009

WHEELS OF WAR is due to be published any minute, which is very exciting: it was delivered to the publisher long ago - before any of the Truth Sayer books - but various complications have delayed publication until now.

WHEELS OF WAR was great fun to write. It's set in the 1820s and I needed to know lots about carpentry, cartwheels, horse driving, stained glass, soldiering and dung. I was helped greatly by Kath Worrall, who helped me with the horses, and Jerry Stone, who knew exactly what the moon should be doing at each stage of the story. My father, A. J, Ward, lent me a beautiful 18th century gardening book which was quite evangelical about the uses of human dung.

I'm at the final, scary, stages of writing THE ICE MAIDEN, my Cold Tom-linked book, at the moment. That's been interesting, too, and I've learnt a beautiful new word that I've been able to use: deasil. It's the opposite of widdershins.

I've just received artwork roughs for my FRUIT folk tales. I do admire illustrators tremendously, especially for the way they wiggle their pictures through the blocks of text. I do hope the illustrator of THE BAOBAB TREE (I don't know his or her name yet) enjoyed drawing the picture of the gods sticking eyelashes onto a very indignant ostrich.

March 2009

This summer will see the publication of two novels: THE TRUTH SAYER: PLAGUE OF MONDAYS and WHEELS OF WAR.

I've been visiting lots of libraries in my home county of Hertfordshire, which has been a great pleasure, and am just back from the Saffron Walden Festival, where I got to speak in the local cinema - a first!

Thanks to everyone who has made my visits so much fun.

I've just finished writing two anthologies of folk tales about FLOODS and FRUIT, which has been fascinating. The world is full of tremendous stories! Vietnam alone has a marvellous collection of folk tales, and I wish I'd had space in the anthology to include more of them.

My major project at the moment is a novel, THE ICE MAIDEN, which is linked to COLD TOM, though it is set in 1938. The research for this book has been extremely interesting, and I've been lucky enough to be able to consult the violinist Stefanie Logie, who's been able to tell me lots about being in Berlin in the 1930s.

THE ICE MAIDEN takes place around the vernal equinox, so my next bit of research will involve a long walk on the common around the 20th March with a notebook and camera

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